Atlantic Hurricane Season Snoozing As June Comes To A Close

No news is good news when it comes to hurricanes. The Atlantic hurricane season is about as quiet as it can get for this time of the year. We’ve only had one named storm so far—Alberto—and it formed before the official start of the season. It’s common to go long stretches without any tropical activity during the early summer months when the season is just beginning. We’re still more than two months from the historical peak of hurricane season.

The only storm we’ve seen in the Atlantic Ocean so far this year was Subtropical Storm Alberto, an odd system that made landfall along the northern Gulf Coast at the end of May. Alberto brought heavy rain and gusty winds to the southeastern United States, and the storm was largely forgetful aside from the fact that it didn’t transition into a fully-tropical storm until it was over Tennessee (as one does).

Since then, though, there hasn’t been a hint of a tropical belch from the Atlantic basin. A favorable environment for tropical cyclone development features warm sea surface temperatures, rich moisture in the atmosphere, low wind shear, and a solid tropical wave or disturbance that can serve as the nucleus for tropical development. So far this season in the Atlantic, we’ve seen…well, none of those.

Tropical cyclone formation at the end of June is favored in the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean. We’re still early enough in the season that storms are usually relatively weak and form close to land. It’s not until we get into July that storms start forming farther out in the Atlantic’s main development region between the Lesser Antilles and Africa.

Conditions in the Gulf and Caribbean—exactly where you’d expect tropical cyclone development at the end of June—are just brutal right now. It’s inhospitable for tropical development. Wind shear over the region is borderline destructive; any thunderstorms that would try to form into something more would have their tops sheared off. Water temperatures are right around average this week, but they’re trending a bit cooler than normal.

There’s also a potent Saharan Air Layer moving across the Atlantic and Caribbean toward North America this week. You can easily see the dust on the satellite image at the top of this post. Large amounts of blowing Saharan dust can stay suspended in the atmosphere long enough to cross the ocean. The dust could even lead to hazy skies in Texas this weekend. The Saharan Air Layer, as you can imagine, is rather dry. These intrusions of dry, dusty air covering the Atlantic have done quite a number on attempted tropical cyclones over the past couple of years, and it’s continuing the trend of making the environment unfriendly to any potential development.

Hurricane season peaks around the second week of September. The average date of the first named storm in the Atlantic is July 9, so even if we discount pre-season Alberto, we won’t really fall behind in storm activity for a few more weeks. Most long-range hurricane outlooks for this season called for near-average or slightly above-average activity in the Atlantic, but the presence of cooler-than-normal waters across the basin, as well as the potential for an El Niño this fall, could keep this year on the quieter side. However, quiet years can still produce destructive storms. It’s an extreme example, but 1992’s first named storm—Hurricane Andrew—didn’t form until August 16.

I'm a writer who focuses on the weather and everything related to it, from sprawling storms that span continents to the interpersonal issues we encounter when trying to communicate hazards to the public. I graduated from the University of South Alabama in 2014 with a degree...